Tom climbs tall building IV

Saw the first showing of Tom climbs tall building IV (Mission difficult but they still do it (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)) at the BFI IMAX near Waterloo, on Wednesday. It also, as I'm sure you are aware, unless you only read my blog for film news, which you really should by the way, had 'The Dark Knight Rises' 6 minute prologue attached to the front of the feature.

The undoubted 'highpoint' was Tom Cruise's ascent of Burj Khalifa building in Dubai, a whopping 2,723 ft tall. A breathtaking, practical stunt and made all the more impressive with IMAXs giant screen increasing the feeling of vertigo. It even felt to me, that Brad Bird, the director, dolly zoomed when going across Burj Khalifa or maybe it was just the feeling that the building was fucking massive anyway.

The gadgets and technology, as per usual, were marvellous and ridiculous in equal wonderful measure. They ranged from an illusion creating iPad and sticky traction gloves.

A thing that stood out though, in the opening sequence of a Russian prison outbreak, that the first inmate to be freed by Simon Pegg's character, looked suspiciously familiar:

I genuinely thought, for a second, that it was Peter Serafinowicz and Butterfield in deep, deep cover in a Hollywood movie.

Tom climbs tall building IV also brought back one of the greatest sights in action cinema: the Tom Cruise run.

His run is just so incredibly efficient, it seems like Tom is always able to get from A to B in the most efficient time possible, without even being the fastest. I would love to know how he was at running at school. It is measured and controlled, the complete opposite of Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones, constantly scrambling.

The film is quite heavy-handed in ramming home it's central theme of teamwork. It even concludes with the whole team sitting down and discussing teamwork in a nice little 'circle time'. In addition, although funny in places, the film is a bit too comic in tone, it seems to think that Simon Pegg's operative, Benji is God's gift to comedy.

It also lacks a good, strong villain, Michael Nyqvist, given very little to work with. He only really becomes effective in his final scene, showing how strongly he is willing to follow his convictions.

Overall though, the film is a good, fun popcorn film, weaker than Mission Impossible 3 but better than Mission Impossible 2.

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A quick comment on the Dark Knight Rises prologue. I almost completely understood Bane's voice, only misunderstanding his last words before the plane is dropped. I really liked his voice as you could hear the intelligence behind it and it reminded me of a Moriarty like quality. In regards to understanding Bane throughout the whole duration of the film, it obviously remains to be seen. In my opinion, most of Nolan's films have always had quite a difficult indecipherable quality to it's sound mix. I remember having difficultly in hearing some parts of Inception's dialogue last year, for instance.

Nevertheless, without obviously seeing the whole of the film, some have jumped to conclusions with Bane's voice in the film - with funny results.

What did you think of the prologue? Type some buttons down below and we will have a friendly chit-chat